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Spartans safety recruit suffered dislocated ankle in senior year of high school, says he feels like himself again

The depth chart says redshirt and so does Grayson Miller's head, but the Michigan State recruit can be forgiven for pining for something else.

Four plays of football as a high school senior will do that to you. That's all Miller got in at Georgetown (Ky.) Scott in the fall before planting on a block as a wide receiver and suffering a dislocated ankle and fractured fibula when a linebacker landed on him.

"Obviously, I have a giant craving to play," said the 6-foot-2, 205-pound Miller, who is coming to MSU to play safety — like his father, former MSU great John Miller. "I want to play more than anything. And I think my opportunity this year would especially be on special teams. It was one of my favorite parts of the game in high school and I was really, really good at it. Blocking punts and getting off the line quick, running down kickoffs. But I just have to see. Either thing would be great for me."

Miller and the rest of the MSU freshman class starts work under strength coach Ken Mannie on July 6, and preseason camp begins for the Spartans on Aug. 7. Miller is coming off a trying year that involved surgery and months of rehab — and watching his girlfriend tear knee ligaments just seconds into her lacrosse season — but he said he finally started to feel like himself again during track in the spring.

He still managed to finish as one of his high school's valedictorians with a perfect 4.0 grade-point average, and he said he learned a few things in the process of going through his first injury.

"All the cliché things you can think of in the world," Miller said. "Never taking things for granted, stuff like that. But more importantly I just learned that stuff is gonna happen and it's gonna happen for a reason. Some of my teammates in the same position are gonna play college football now because they got a chance to be looked at.

"It testifies that I have a pretty good life because it was pretty much the most miserable four months of my life. It sucked. But all my best friends in the world are on the team, they helped me through it and I put it behind me."